August Wrap-Up & September Reading Plans | 2023

Fall is my favorite season, and, while it doesn’t technically start until September 23rd, for me it’s already fall. Though French weather is all over the place, it was chilly and rainy in August and now it’s really warm.

Because of the rain and the cold weather, I stayed more at home which meant that I read quite a bit. I’m embracing mood-reading at the moment so I basically read from every genre last month and I had a blast! 🙂

BOOKS READ

Home Before Dark was the first book I read by Riley Sager and I really enjoyed it! The atmosphere worked perfectly for the cold weather. It was a very good page-turner and I liked the story quite a bit even if the characters were a bit flat and the ending was a bit ridiculous. I don’t want to spoil the ending but let’s just say I wasn’t a fan of the genre-shift? ★★★★

I read La Marche de l’Incertitude (The Walk of Uncertainty) by Yamen Manai after enjoying his last book in July and I loved this one even more. It’s his debut and it was such a comforting tale of love and destiny. The prose was stunning and I read most of it out-loud to appreciate it even more. It’s such a shame it’s not translated (yet?). ★★★★★

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare has been on my TBR for years and I liked it even if I expected to enjoy it more. It was a “marriage of convenience” story but it wasn’t as slow-burned as I would have liked it to be. It gave me the Bridgerton TV show fix and I will probably continue on with the series but it’s not a new favorite. ★★★

I finally finished The Best Science Fiction volume 1 edited by Neil Clarke after reading it for… three months? Four? I don’t even remember when I started this anthology. It was very good but it always takes me forever to tackle big anthologies. I enjoyed most of the stories and I’ll probably review the anthology at some points since I have notes for all the stories. ★★★★

I picked up on a whim A Decolonial Feminism by Francoise Vergès in a bookstore and I read it immediately. I was already familiar with the concept of decolonial feminism so I found the first part of the book a bit boring and repetitive but the second half was great and made me want to read more from the author. ★★★★

I also read and absolutely loved He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan. I won’t go into too much details as I have already reviewed this book but it was a great finale to the duology and (dare I say it?), I enjoyed it even more than the first book, She Who Became the Sun. ★★★★★

La Papeterie Tsubaki (The Tsubaki Stationery Shop) by Ogawa Ito was a delightful story following the daily life of a stationery shop owner and public writer in Japan. It’s a book for book lovers, it’s quiet, cozy and perfect to read with a cup of tea. ★★★★

Life for Sale by Yukio Mishima was the other Japanese novel I read in August and it was very different form Okawa’s book and anything else Mishima has written. It’s a parody of sort of a thriller (maybe?) following the crazy adventures of a guy who keeps on selling his life to other people. It was quite the experience even if I can’t really say that I enjoyed reading it. ★★★

I picked up again a subscription to Clarkesworld so I read the August issue (#203). It was a very solid issue and I’m looking forward to reading the next one. ★★★★

GOALS CHECK-IN

• Number of books read: +9 (Total read: 40/65)
• Number of books read from my list of 23 Books to read in 2023: +1 (Total read: 7/23)
• Number of literary fiction books read: +2 (Total read 12/12)
• Number of thrillers read: +2 (Total read 4/6)
• Number of books read in French: +4 (Total read 15/3)
• Number of re-reads: +0 (Total read 4/5)

TV SHOWS & MOVIES

Though I would love to gush about Red, White & Royal Blue, I watched it in September so it will be for next month! I haven’t watched any k-dramas (I started a few random ones here and there but I dropped them all).

CURRENTLY READING & PLANS

I already finished four books in September including a book I picked up because of Booktok that was kind of terrible. Ok, not kind of, it was terrible. I might review it just for fun, I don’t know, it might not be worth the effort.

I’m currently reading Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and I don’t know what’s going on but it’s always the case with her books so, nothing new under the sun. Here are the books I would like to get to in September:

I might also re-read Unconquerable Sun because I would like to read Furious Heaven but I don’t remember a lot from the first book. I also have the new Ali Hazelwood on my Kindle and a bunch of library books so, I might read those as well!

How was your month of August? 🙂